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Alexandre Dumas first published “Les Trois Mousquetaires” in 1844. It tells the tale of a young man who travels to Paris in order to join the Musketeers of the Guard, a light cavalry unit charged with protecting the King of France. The tale has become a classic, still widely available in print today, and has seen iterations in nearly every form of media there is; there have been tv shows, radio programs, video games and of course numerous films.

I have to imagine though, if Dumas saw this particular iteration, by Paul W.S. Anderson of “Resident Evil” fame, his thought would be “What the $&#% is this?”

Ok, Bond fans. This is it, the last Bond related post for the foreseeable future. :( Non Bond fans, bear with me one last time, with the exception of Wednesday’s (title pending), we’re going to move on back to our regularly scheduled movie talk starting tomorrow. I promise. :D

But there’s one more ranking that needs to be done, and it’s a big one. The films themselves. The Bond series has had numerous ups and downs over the five decades that its been around, giving us some great movies, and some awful ones. And this weekend brought us one that wants to shoulder its way to the top, people are already talking about it being the “Best Bond Ever”.

In 2002, Eon Productions released the 20th Bond film in the series, “Die Another Day”.

Though it was critically panned (57% on Rotten Tomatoes) and generally reviled by hardcore fans, it was still a huge hit. The combination of Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry provided an enormous box office draw. Without taking inflation into account, it was the highest grossing Bond film ever released. It earned $432 million worldwide, and was the sixth highest grossing film of 2002.

The producers were faced with a difficult decision. Brosnan, though still wildly popular, had fulfilled his contract and was about to turn 50. The series had also begun to lose credibility during Brosnan’s run, with the quality of the movies gradually devolving until they were cartoonish action films.

They made the difficult decision to recast the role of James Bond, replacing Brosnan with the relatively unknown Daniel Craig. They also decided to create a more grounded movie… to return 007 to more believable territory.

The result? A movie that not only overtook “Die Another Day” as the series’ box office champion, but one that many fans list as the greatest film in the franchise’s proud history.

The quality of a Bond movie, to a large extent, is determined by the strength of its villain. Over the course of the franchise, each movie has set up a head honcho, a chief villain, a nemesis for Bond to conquer. And these adversaries and their plans often determine the quality of that particular movie. When they’re poor, it can be near impossible to overcome (“Tomorrow Never Dies”), when they’re done exceptionally well, it can launch the movie into classic status (“Goldfinger”)!

These are the chiefs, the bosses. For the Top Ten Henchmen in the series, click here! Here’s my list of the ten best top dogs. Those villains who gave us chills or made our skin crawl or simply that we love to hate! These are the characters that add to the legacy of the franchise from the evil side of things! The Top Ten Bond Villains of all time!

2002’s “Die Another Day”, although a huge box office hit, had not been received well critically and wasn’t sitting well with fans. Bad CGI? Obnoxious product placement? A Madonna cameo? The franchise had returned to cartoonishness reminiscent of the worst of the Moore era.

Pierce Brosnan expressed willingness to return as Bond, but his four picture deal had been satisfied. EON Productions was also considering recasting the role with a younger actor (Brosnan was about to turn 50). After a period of deliberation, when an agreement on a one picture deal could not be reached, Brosnan announced he was retiring from the role, and EON announced they were giving the Bond franchise a “reboot”.